Rejection by a publisher usually leaves us feeling down and may set us into a spiral of self doubt or anger that can be painful and self-defeating. It's helpful to know how to handle rejection by a publisher or agent in a more positive way. Everyone faces rejection or failure sometimes. It could be a girl saying’ no’ when you ask her out, failing an exam, not passing an audition, not getting into the team, burning a cake or loosing a game. Whatever it is, the feeling is the same, more intense for some things, but basically the same, and not a pleasant feeling. Artists of all kinds get rejected more than most. It’s a fact of life for people in their professions. As a performer, every time I went for an audition, I faced rejection, and rejection is what I got more often than not. This is normal. You get used to it, but it can take a while. By the time I started writing, I was prepared for the inevitable rejections. I’d learnt how to handle it. Tips on avoiding … [Read more...]
How to approach book publishers and agents
If you’ve written your book, want it published and don’t want to do the publishing work yourself, then you’ll be contacting agents and/or publishers. Self-publishing service providers aren’t selective, so if you’re happy to self-publish with someone else doing the work, then you just contact a self-publishing company and go from there; you don’t have to present your book well in order to get them to want to read it. But hybrid publishers, like my company AIA Publishing, are selective. Although the publishing process is author funded, hybrid publishers don’t publish just anything, and so you’ll have to submit a query and see if they think your book is good enough for them to publish, just as you do with an agent or mainstream/legacy publisher. I started in the literary business as an author, and I researched how to write a good query letter and best practices to maximise my chances of snagging a publisher. Some of the advice I found—though I followed it all—made me wonder why such … [Read more...]
Good Writing is More Than Good Grammar
Good grammar does not always equal good writing. We must find a balance between the precision afforded by correct grammar and the nuances of the author and characters' voices. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes they aren't. Look at the dialogue in Huckleberry Finn. Many people don't speak in correct grammar, and for some characters, to use perfect grammar would seem unnatural and unbelievable. For instance a non-native English speaker speaking English. Good grammar is important, don't get me wrong, it's just that good writing is more than good grammar. It’s easy to lose sight of the writing because we’re too busy looking at the grammar and punctuation. The old saying that expresses this is: you can’t see the forest for the trees. This is why a copy edit is not enough to ensure that writing is of a professional standard. A copy edit focuses only on the trees. It will check that each tree is straight and well pruned, but there is more to a beautiful forest than straight … [Read more...]
Out Now – Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism.
Have you heard of the best selling book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche? Did you know that this man, famous in the Tibetan Buddhist world, has been abusing students for decades? It's quite a story.Read my latest book to find out what happened when I discovered that my spiritual teacher was seriously abusing his closest students. Become aware of the dark underbelly of some Tibetan Buddhist groups. ‘A compelling account of what can go wrong in religious groups.’ Barbara Scott Emmett, author. Description Fallout is the memoir of one woman’s journey from ignorance of the reports of physical, emotional and sexual abuse by Sogyal Rinpoche, spiritual teacher of the Rigpa Tibetan Buddhist community, to the realisation of the depth of the trauma suffered by survivors, and how certain beliefs and assumptions enables such abuse. It’s also a tribute to the healing power of the What Now? virtual support group, and the … [Read more...]
Writing Style Issues
Some think that writing style issues are irrelevant because an author’s style is a personal choice. Indeed it is a personal choice, though that choice is mostly unconscious. We each express ourselves in a way that sounds right to us, that is in our voice—unless we’re doing a copy-cat of someone else or aiming to write in a particular style for a particular purpose, for instance, a Gothic style or a report. Our style may be similar to another author, of course, but our word choice, what we choose to reveal and focus on, and how we phrase our thoughts will be ours alone. For that reason, as an editor, I try not to do anything that changes an author’s overall style; I aim to strengthen, not weaken their voice. However, stylistic choices that are ‘bad form’ do have to be eradicated if the author wants a truly professional product. Certain stylistic choices are ‘bad form’ for a reason; not just because someone says so, but because they water down the author’s message—they weaken the … [Read more...]
Book Marketing and the Book I Wasn’t Planning to Write
Several years ago I decided not to write anymore books because I hate book marketing and because I wanted to concentrate on my editing clients. Getting reviews, writing marketing materials, making social media posts, taking out adverts, doing special promotions and so on all took a lot of time, and they weren't activities I enjoyed or had talent for. The thought of the need to market anything I wrote smothered my inspiration. Until something happened in my life that I had to write about to help me and others examine issues and find closure for a painful period of our lives. The result is my book Fallout: Recovering from Abuse in Tibetan Buddhism. It's on pre-order now at a special price and will be published on my birthday, the 20th of July. How the book came to be written Over the last couple of years, I wrote a lot of blog posts on the issue of abuse in Tibetan Buddhism on the What Now? blog (now the Beyond the Temple website) and in the back of my mind was the … [Read more...]
How to Use Track Changes in Word
Authors working with editors need to know how to use Track Changes in Word because that's how your editor shows you what they've done. Without it, you'd have to look at the old document and compare it to the edited one to see their changes. It's a good idea to check the changes they've made for two reasons: in case they've changed something such that it doesn't say what you wanted it to say, and so that you learn from their corrections. The Track Changes function allows you to communicate and collaborate with your editor in a way that is difficult to do without using that function - unless you can get together physically, of course. But most editors work remotely these days. You're no longer stuck with whoever is in your area. Watch the video to see how to use Track Changes in Word Image by Michael Gaida from Pixabay Did that help? Please let me know in the comments below. I love to hear your thoughts. And if you want to ask a question, I'll answer as best I … [Read more...]
How to Work with Bookmarks in a Word Document – and Comments.
Do you know how to work with bookmarks in a word document? What about comments? If you're an author and you don't know, then it's important that you learn so you can communicate easily with your editor. And being able to do that will make you feel like this: This is the second in a series of posts on how to work with Word to help you communicate with your editor. In the last post, I talked about how to set up your Word document and format your headings so you can see the outline of your manuscript in the Navigation pane. The next post will tell you how to work with Track Changes. The best way to learn is by watching this video, but I also have some notes below that will show you where to find the bookmarks on older versions of Word. Comments Manuscript appraisals are usually the first step in editing, and an editor will talk to you by using comments. If you don’t see comments on your manuscript appraisal. Go to the Review menu and click Show Comments. In the … [Read more...]
How to set up a Word Document for Book Writing
Do you know how to set up a Word document for book writing? Watch the video for ways to make navigating a long document easy, and to set the formating to suit what editors, agents and publishers prefer https://youtu.be/9mfZuKfj7mo … [Read more...]
Writing in Third Person Intimate Point of View
Writing in third-person intimate point of view (POV) allows the author to write deeply from a character’s perspective as in first-person POV, but it also allows the story to be told from several points of view—the changes just have to be carefully done to avoid head hopping. The reason to choose third-person intimate over omniscient POV is that the reader gets right into the mind of the character and so gets to know the characters more deeply than they would with omniscient POV. Because the story is told in the character’s voice, it’s more interesting and engaging than omniscient, which is a very remote way of telling a story. See my last post for an explanation of the difference between the two points of view. Beginner’s faults Unless they’ve done a lot of previous study of the writing craft, beginning authors who use third-person POV often think they’re writing in omniscient even if they’re not, and they usually start by writing in expositional rather than descriptive prose … [Read more...]
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